Imatges de pàgina
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Yet, foul night-waking cat, he doth but dally,
While in his hold-faft foot the weak mouse panteth:
Her fad behaviour feeds his vultur folly,

A fwallowing gulf that even in plenty wanteth :
His ear her prayers admits, but his heart granteth
No penetrable entrance to her plaining:

Tears harden luft, though marble wear with raining.

Her pity-pleading eyes are fadly fixed
In the remorfelefs wrinkles of his face;
Her modeft eloquence with fighs is mixed,
Which to her oratory adds more grace.
She puts the period often from his place,

And 'midst the sentence fo her accent breaks,
That twice the doth begin ere once the fpeaks.

She conjures him by high almighty Jove,

By knighthood, gentry, and sweet friendship's oath,
By her untimely tears, her husband's love,

By holy human law, and common troth,

By heaven and earth, and all the power of both,
That to his borrow'd bed he make retire,
And stoop to honour, not to foul defire.

Quoth fhe, reward not hospitality

With fuch black payment as thou hast pretended;
Mud not the fountain that gave drink to thee;
Mar not the thing that cannot be amended;
End thy ill aim, before thy shoot be ended :
He is no wood-man that doth bend his bow
To strike a poor unseasonable doe.

My husband is thy friend, for his fake spare me;
Thyfelf art mighty, for thine own fake leave me ;
Myself a weakling, do not then ensnare me.

Thou look'ft not like deceit; do not deceive me:
My fighs, like whirlwinds, labour hence to heave thee,
If ever man were mov'd with woman's moans,
Be moved with my tears, my fighs, my groans;

All which together, like a troubled ocean,
Beat at thy rocky and wreck-threatening heart,
To foften it with their continual motion;
For ftones diffolv'd to water do convert.
O, if no harder than a stone thou art,
Melt at my tears and be compaffionate!
Soft pity enters at an iron gate.

In Tarquin's likeness I did entertain thee:
Haft thou put on his shape to do him shame?
To all the host of heaven I complain me,
Thou wrong'ft his honour, wound'st his princely name,
Thou art not what thou seem'ft; and if the fame,
Thou feem'ft not what thou art, a god, a king;
For kings like gods should govern every thing.

How will thy fhame be feeded in thine age,
When thus thy vices bud before thy spring?
If in thy hope thou dar'ft do such outrage,
What dar'ft thou not when once thou art a king?
O be remember'd, no outrageous thing

From vaffal actors can be wip'd away;

Then kings' misdeeds cannot be hid in clay.

This deed will make thee only lov'd for fear,
But happy monarchs ftill are fear'd for love:
With foul offenders thou perforce must bear,
When they in thee the like offences prove:
If but for fear of this, thy will remove;

For princes are the glass, the school, the book,
Where fubjects' eyes do learn, do read, do look.

And wilt thou be the school where Luft fhall learn?
Must he in thee read lectures of fuch fhame?
Wilt thou be glafs, wherein it shall difcern
Authority for fin, warrant for blame,
To privilege dishonour in thy name?

Thou back'ft reproach against long-living laud,
And mak'st fair reputation but a bawd.

Haft thou command? by him that gave it thee,
From a pure heart command thy rebel will :
Draw not thy fword to guard iniquity,
For it was lent thee all that brood to kill.
Thy princely office how canft thou fulfill,

When, pattern'd by thy fault, foul Sin may fay,
He learn'd to fin, and thou didst teach the way?

Think but how vile a fpectacle it were
To view thy present trespass in another.
Men's faults do feldom to themselves appear;
Their own tranfgreffions partially they fmother:
This guilt would feem death-worthy in thy brother.
O how are they wrapp'd in with infamies,

That from their own misdeeds afkaunce their eyes!

To thee, to thee, my heav'd-up hands appeal,
Not to feducing luft, thy rash relier;
I fue for exil'd majesty's repeal;

Let him return, and flattering thoughts retire :
His true refpect will 'prison false defire,

And wipe the dim mift from thy doting eyne,
That thou fhalt fee thy ftate, and pity mine.

Have done, quoth he; my uncontrolled tide
Turns not, but swells the higher by this let.
Small lights are foon blown out, huge fires abide,
And with the wind in greater fury fret:

The petty streams that pay a daily debt

To their falt fovereign, with their fresh falls' haste, Add to his flow, but alter not his taste.

Thou art, quoth she, a sea, a fovereign king;
And lo, there falls into thy boundless flood
Black luft, dishonour, fhame' misgoverning,
Who seek to stain the ocean of thy blood.
If all these petty ills shall change thy good,
Thy fea within a puddle's womb is herfed,
And not the puddle in thy fea difperfed.

So fhall these flaves be king, and thou their flave;
Thou nobly base, they bafely dignified;
Thou their fair life, and they thy fouler grave;
Thou loathed in their shame, they in thy pride:
The leffer thing should not the greater hide;

The cedar ftoops not to the base shrub's foot,
But low fhrubs wither at the cedar's root..

So let thy thoughts, low vaffals to thy state

No more, quoth he, by heaven, I will not hear thee:
Yield to my love; if not, enforced hate,

Instead of love's coy touch, fhall rudely tear thee;
That done, despitefully I mean to bear thee
Unto the base bed of fome rafcal groom,
To be thy partner in this shameful doom.

This faid, he fets his foot upon the light,
For light and luft are deadly enemies :
Shame folded up in blind concealing night,
When most unfeen, then most doth tyrannize.

The wolf hath feiz'd his prey, the poor lamb cries,
Till with her own white fleece her voice controll'd
Entombs her outcry in her lips' sweet fold:

For with the nightly linen that fhe wears,
He pens her piteous clamours in her head;
Cooling his hot face in the chastest tears
That ever modeft eyes with sorrow shed.
O, that prone luft should stain fo pure a bed!
The spots whereof could weeping purify,
Her tears should drop on them perpetually.

But she hath loft a dearer thing than life,
And he hath won what he would lofe again.
This forced league doth force a further ftrife,
This momentary joy breeds months of pain,
This hot defire converts to cold difdain :

Pure chastity is rifled of her store,
And luft, the thief, far poorer
than before.

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